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December 9

Ruth 3: 1-9

 One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, I must find a home^[a] for you, where you will be well provided for. ² Now Boaz, with whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours. Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. ³ Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. ⁴ When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.”

⁵ “I will do whatever you say,” Ruth answered. ⁶ So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do.

⁷ When Boaz had finished eating and drinking and was in good spirits, he went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Ruth approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down. ⁸ In the middle of the night something startled the man; he turned—and there was a woman lying at his feet!

⁹ “Who are you?” he asked. “I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer^[b] of our family.”

Today's passage takes us on only one generation.  Although we know that Rahab was the 29 times great grandmother of Jesus,  we don’t know very much more about her than what we heard yesterday.  She did marry,  however, and married a Jew,  giving birth to a son, Boaz.  The same Boaz, who married Ruth.  

We tend to think of Ruth as one of the female heroes of the faith,  famed for her tremendous loyalty to her mother in law Naomi.  When Naomi was widowed and lost her sons,  she decided to return to Judah,  to the town of Bethlehem from Moab.  Ruth, her daughter-in-law chose to go with her,  even though it meant leaving behind family and friends and taking on a faith that was not her own.  She gets very good press.  But here,  we read of a different side to her.  Here we have Naomi and Ruth scheming to catch a husband for Ruth,  to secure their future.  They took a risk,  things might not have turned out as they did,  but they had counted on Boaz being and honourable man and so it proved.  Their son,  Obed,  a child of the city of David,  was a direct ancestor of the promised one.

Sometimes we like to imagine that a life lived in faith is a neat tidy one,  with no glitches,  but that is far from the case.  In this tale of entrapment,  we see the messiness of life in all its fullness.  It wasn’t the first time,  God’s encounters with his people were messy and it wouldn’t be the last!.